Image Details

Finnish National Gallery

“Lazarus, come out!” (John 11:43), Jesus calls at the entrance to the burial cave of his friend, who has been dead four days. In this 1860 oil painting by Finnish artist Robert Wilhelm Ekman, Lazarus miraculously rises from the hole in the ground, his body still wrapped in a white shroud, his hands raised in prayer. John’s gospel presents the New Testament’s most spectacular miracle stories as evidence of Jesus’ divinity. For John (who alone recounts this event), Jesus’ resurrection of Lazarus is the ultimate sign that Jesus is God, capable of giving life.